The La Liga president Javier Tebas said that the attempt to have the breakaway European Super League is a unique opportunity to ruin football and the reforms agreed for the UEFA Champions League is the way ahead.
Tebas was joined by the presidents of five La Liga clubs - Sevilla FC, Real Betis, Villarreal CF, Valencia CF and Levante UD – who expressed their solidarity with the views of the La Liga president, in a virtual press conference for the global media.
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"I have always maintained that the concept of European Super League was a unique opportunity to ruin football. We at Spanish football are trying to end this complicated situation as we continue with our financial control model,” Tebas said, while taking questions on the rise and fall of the breakaway league.
“The threats are coming from the big European clubs for a long time. Now that is going to disappear. It is interesting to see what happened in Europe in the last few days. The English clubs withdrew straight away after the fans and the politicians got involved and the same happened with the French clubs after President (Emmanuel) Macron got involved,” Tebas said.
The La Liga president said that the big European clubs wrongly assessed ESL as an opportunity to bail out of their own financial crisis. “The question is not about revenue. If we give them more revenue compared to what they can earn there will be more demand. I think it is better that the big clubs should manage their expenses in a better way," he said.
"Just a few days ago the European Club Association (ECA), where all these big clubs are members, voted in favour of having reforms in the UEFA Champions League. Later, the UEFA champions committee and the executive committee accepted the decision of ECA, where (Juventus boss) Andrea Agnelli was the chairman. There was no point in breaking down the agreement and forming a separate league,” Tebas added.
Will the big sides like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid be facing sanctions? “We are not thinking about sanctions now. We don’t not want to rush into things. We are tackling something that is very dangerous for football. We have to see how it turns out in the end. If some clubs continue with their project then we’ll have to defend ourselves.
"What we are talking about now is having binding agreements in future. Many of the clubs who thought of joining the ESL have been sanctioned by their own fans and some clubs who are still contemplating a different path, their reputations have already been affected,” Tebas said.
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